


if you want another kind of love, i'll wear a mask for you

by lanyon



Series: i've got your blood under my fingernails [7]
Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Community: ccbingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-09
Updated: 2012-02-09
Packaged: 2017-10-30 21:16:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 897
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/336253
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lanyon/pseuds/lanyon
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“I just mean that, you know – it’s always you and me, sir. We’re always the ones who end up handcuffed to each other at the end of a mission.”</p><p> </p><p>Coulson’s features soften with amusement. “That was once, Agent Barton.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	if you want another kind of love, i'll wear a mask for you

When Coulson is released from Medical, there is no argument when Barton offers to take him home. Not from Coulson and not from Fury and not from anyone else at SHIELD. Fury’s only remark is that Coulson’s not allowed to set foot in HQ for two weeks. It’s a laughable request. They’ll be lucky if they can keep him out over the weekend. (Today is Saturday.)

 

Barton waits outside the door while Coulson gets dressed. He’d offer to help but he hasn’t the first clue what’s going on anymore and hospital gowns and casual clothes will just complicate the issue.

 

When Coulson requests that they stop at Whole Foods in Union Square on the way home, Barton doesn’t think to argue. He’s too busy keeping his eyes on the street and on the traffic and on the motherfucking pedestrians and on Coulson, quiet in the passenger seat.

 

The silence between them is brittle. Romanov came to Barton earlier today and told him that they probably shouldn’t fuck anymore. Barton agreed readily but he’s still confused. People talk. That’s what Coulson always says, in his quiet, wry tones. Barton’s just not sure what they have to talk about. It’s not that there’s nothing here. There is. It fills the spaces between the silence and Barton is wise to shifts in his equilibrium and his environment, even if he can’t always interpret them (he can always compensate for them, though).

 

Like now. They’ve pulled in and it doesn’t matter if there’s no onstreet parking at Union Square because they’re fucking SHIELD. The NYPD can bring it on if they think Barton’s going to make Coulson walk any further than the ten feet from the curb to the front door of the store.

 

Coulson’s looking at him and he’s looking back at Coulson.

 

“Thank you, Clint.”

 

Barton’s not sure when Coulson starting slipping and calling him Clint. It strikes him as the sort of thing he should have noticed. “All part of the service, sir.” That makes Coulson wince and Barton is in a hurry to cover up.  “I just mean that, you know – it’s always you and me, sir. We’re always the ones who end up handcuffed to each other at the end of a mission.”

 

Coulson’s features soften with amusement. “That was once, Agent Barton.”

 

Barton shakes his head as he gets out of the car. The conversation continues over the car roof as Coulson walks around to the sidewalk. “Twice, sir. There was that one time you were concussed and Steve had to carry you to the pick-up point.”  
  
“Please do continue emasculating me, Clint,” says Phil, his soft murmur somehow reaching Barton’s ears over the unhealthy whine of a passing bus.

 

“It’s not my fault that you’re always injuring yourself, sir.”  
  
“I’d like to point out that my rate of injury increased exponentially when you joined SHIELD.”

 

“And that’s not my fault, either, sir. I can’t help it if you’re distracted by my mere presence.” Barton knows there’s a shit-eating grin on his face and there it is; that moment when he thinks that maybe he knows what’s going on. “Maybe someone should write a new SOP on the subject.”

 

Coulson is smiling, too, and when their eyes meet, there’s that familiar spark that sends heat suffusing through Barton’s cheeks. “I’m not sure I have the heart or energy to write a Care and Feeding manual just yet, Barton.”

 

Coulson pushes the cart and Barton oversees the acquisition of food. The healthy sort that requires actual preparation beyond microwaving.  The road to hell is paved with good intentions, though, and with over-sweetened breakfast cereals. Coulson rolls his eyes when Barton puts a giant box of Cinnamon Toast Crunch in the cart and he retaliates with donuts.

 

“Wait here,” says Barton and he goes down to the basement level to find some decent coffee, which he fully intends to issue in aliquots, based on how compliant Coulson is being with bed-rest and painkillers. He ambles back to Coulson, taking a circuitous route to pick up some beer, and he’s brought up short by the sight of Coulson talking amiably to an elderly woman.

 

When Barton approaches, the woman beams at him and lays her hand briefly on Coulson’s uninjured arm. “I’ll let you back to your young man, now,” she says, with a faintly Irish accent.

 

Barton blinks as he sets the coffee and beer into the cart. “Should I ask how you’re managing to pick up octogenarians in a grocery store, sir?”

 

Coulson frowns and looks vaguely in the direction in which the old lady walked. “Doris isn’t that old, I’m sure.”

 

“Sir, you know her name. Did she give you her digits too? Were they eighty-five-if-I’m-a-day?”  
  
Coulson laughs and, dear god, it’s the best sound Barton’s heard all day. It’s up there with bowstrings singing and Tony’s laugh when he blows shit up and the low hum of Coulson’s Acura and that first awkward time when Steve said _assemble_ and Barton said maybe he should just try texting it next time.

 

They walk to the cashiers’ desks and join the purple queue without stopping to confer. Their elbows brush lightly as they stand side by side. When they’re called forward, Barton takes command of the cart.  “I’ll drive, Phil.”

 

Barton notices (and he notices the curve of Coulson’s cheek as he tries not to smile).  
  


**Author's Note:**

> +This is, for once, a direct continuation from the previous installment, in which Phil was captured and injured and subsequently mostly rescued himself.  
> +Title from the great Leonard Cohen's _I'm Your Man_.  
>  +Written for Bingo prompt "Grocery shopping together".


End file.
